Flight of Dreams: A Novel

Flight of Dreams: A Novel by Ariel Lawhon

This historical fiction work brings to life a fictional account of the lives on board the final voyage of the hindenburg. Germany and the United States were not on great terms, thus the airshop used Hydrogen instead of Helium. It was a "nice" way to travel, but the initial novelty and exclusivity had worn off. People were together for a long time onboard the ship. Thus, there were plenty of times for machinations. The book details some family squabbles, affairs as well as desires to escape the Nazis. Here the cause of the crash is an American seeking revenge on a German. He was willing to shoot and destroy the whole airship as a way to avenge a death. There is a bit of drama in the book, though the actually crash feels somewhat anti-climatic.

Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals

Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals by Immanuel Kant, translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott

Kant can be dense. He explores metaphysics and morals. Where do morals come from? What about animals? Can they be moral? The discussion can be quite difficult to follow.

This was originally Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten in German, and has some alternate English translations, such as Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals, and the Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals.

2666

2666 by Roberto Bolaño translated Natasha Wimmer

This is a long book that the author at one time envisioned publishing as multiple books. He died before it was finished and his heirs decided to publish it as one thing. The various sections of the book tell their own stories that are somewhat related together. There are sections discussing the life and romantic experiences of an author. One section goes back to World War II and talks about experiences in Nazi controlled areas and the experiences complying with Nazi policies and "taking care of" Jewish populations. A significant section of the book covers crime in a Mexican town. This starts with the experience of a African American journalist that is sent to cover a boxing match and then gets interested in the the cases. Then there is a section about the murders. There is a criminal that goes crazy in churches. Later there are women that are mysteriously killed. Most have few external connections. Their bodies are often discovered long after their deaths. Eventually an American detective comes in to help resolve the crimes.

I was most interested in the middle section of the novel. Scott Brick always does a great job narrating. Parts at the start and end were not quite as appealing.

Doctor Zhivago

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak translated by Larissa Volokhonsky and Richard Pevear

Doctor Zhivago was a doctor that lived in Russia around the time of great change. There is a lot of talk of the Russian revolution and the onset of war. The Doctor seemed to attend to people and write poetry and concern himself with religion. There were allusions to religious teachings as part of his thinking about things. I wasn't quite sure what the point of everything was. It did seem like he had some wealth and was stuck in some internal conflicts. The novel was first published in Italy because the communist leadership did not want it published.

My Name Is Red

My Name Is Red

Devout Muslim painters in centuries-ago Ottoman Turkey had their challenges. They knew of other European styles, but were conflicted with practices, such as painting deity. They took their work very seriously, and would become one of what they were representing. There is great skill in seeing what cannot be seen and being a blind painter can be a great honor. The book goes on for a long time, with many small vignettes of the illustration experience.

Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative

Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative by Ken Robinson

Creativity is important. Business and education has focussed on teaching towards the test to "improve" the education experience. This often comes at the expense of arts and other outlets for creativity. This has had negative impacts on business where creativity is an important. The book makes this point, then rambles on for a while with examples and rehashing of the same points. The point is good. The delivery is perhaps a little too "creative".

The Invention of Sicily: A Mediterranean History

The Invention of Sicily: A Mediterranean History by Jamie Mackay

This history of Sicily focuses more on the modern history. Early history is covered quickly. Things get slower during the plight of Sicily during the World Wars and part of the kingdom of Naples. The Mafia rose in the somewhat backwards region. The Mafia made sure that they were able to "buy" church property on the cheap. Mussolini nearly wiped them out. However, the US helped them get back into power. (There were plenty of new world connections back to the "old world".)

Sea of Tranquility: A Novel

Sea of Tranquility starts out with a few seemingly unrelated chapters spanning widely different places and time. Time ranges from a century in the past until centuries in the future. In the future, time travel is a possibility, but it is heavily controlled. A bureaucracy exists to prevent negative impacts of time travel. However, like a good bureaucracy, it defines "negative impacts" as things that negatively impact the organization itself. It them becomes clear how these various episodes are tied together. The book gets better the more you get into it.

The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War

The story of Oleg Gordievsky is nearly too real to be believable. He was a KGB agent who decided he would share secrets with Britain. He provided an abundant source of information. However, the west was not able to fully disseminate or act on it for fear of implicating the source. Even the US CIA did not know who the source was (and did some undercover work themselves to try to find out.) When he was posted in London, the UK did some work to help him maintain his position and rise in the ranks. He was able to provide just enough apparently useful intelligence to the Soviet Union to maintain his value.

From his information, Britain was able to learn many of the challenges within the Soviet Union. Even the KGB was mired in its own bureaucracy. The Soviets had also come to the belief that the US was at the cusp of launching a nuclear attack. They would find all sorts of other meaningless actions that seemed to "back up" their supposition. Once Gordievsky was out of the KGB, the west was able to fully act on much of the intelligence provided. This was in the mid-80s, a half decade before the collapse of communism.

His escape from Russia was perhaps the most "unreal" part of the story. The KGB-brass had an inkling that he may be a spy and called him back to Russia. He managed to make it through the truth-serum interrogation, but knew he was likely a dead man. Through coded phone messages, an elaborate escape plan was set in motion that involved signaling using a safeway bag and mars bar. Then the getaway required breaking a multi-vehicle tail, hiding him with heat-resistant blankets in the back of a car, a baby's dirty diaper and making it through multiple checkpoints to get to Finland, then to Norway and finally to England. A young Putin was involved on the Russian side. The book credits Russian bureaucratic complacency as one factor that helped the plot to succeed.

Alas, his wife and kids were still in Russia. They were interrogated by the KGB and had a miserable life for a few years. However, after the fall of communism in the early 90s, they were able to be reunited again. Alas, by this time they had drifted apart. (They had known nothing of his spying or the escape plot and had remained loyal to the USSR.)  

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

Erik Larson explores the life in England during the time of the Blitz by focussing on Churchill and his family. The portrayal is a mixture of "life as normal", "total paranoia" and "putting on a straight face." Churchill's family still continued on their normal (if very quirky) lives despite the German bombing. However, he was also scared for the future of his country. Germany was coming from a position of strength. Britain desperately needed America to help out. However, there were politics at play there also. Churchill could not appear too desperate. Germany was not able to have their easy victory, and Britain ended up more united. The US eventually became all in after the Japanese attacks at Pearl Harbor. The book tries to present the "personal" view of a world leader during trying times. It is not really a biography and not really a history. Churchill and his family had plenty of foibles. Sometimes he seemed to be stuck in minutia that seemed out of place during war time. Other times, he managed to give the perfect speech for the time. 

The Hero With A Thousand Faces

The Hero With a Thousand Faces combines Freudian psychoanalysis with mythology to present a "universal" of human beliefs. The comparison of different archetypal myths across different culture is appealing. However, the book gets really bogged down in the psychoanalysis. The discussion of myths is interrupted with analysis of dreams (which often seems to show some sexual or maternal feeling.) The analysis of different mythologies has an odd relationship with "non-western" mythologies. They are at the same time referred and treated as inferior. This may just be a symptom of the analysis which seems to bring out the most extreme views that match the thesis. This leaves me wanting more, and stories are often left half-told, ending once they have got their point across.
I was less than impressed with the book. The conclusion and epilogue were especially demoralizing. He was attempting a focus on mythologies and had great respect for the importance in societies. He acknowledged the many different explanations of myths, and laments the lack of myths in modern society. (Society discovered the "light" of science, but lost the "light" of myth.) There was so much potential in a work of comparative mythology. Alas, the actual work got bogged down with the then-modern theory of psychoanalysis that it was not able to provide adequate treatment of the different myths.

The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World

The Logic of Life is an economics book in the vein of Freakonomics. It provides logical explanations of seemingly illogical behaviors by people. In many cases, psychological studies tease out logical behavior from seemingly illogical outcomes.
One example was the discussion of racism. "Bigoted racism" would be expected to weed itself out of the business world. If businesses that turn down the best candidates merely because of external characters, would suffer and falter. (A simple example could be seen in basketball where all white teams became at a significant disadvantage compared to integrated teams.) However, "rational racism" is much more difficult to remove because it does provide some "stereotypical" advantage. On average members of certain groups will do better, therefore companies are more likely to hire those in the group. Those in the "out group" still suffer, but companies that practice it are still successful, thus making it more difficult to remove. These groups can also self-reinforce their standing. A Catalan who studies computer science rather than Catalan may be shunned by his community for attempted to do something outside the community. This leads to fewer people being willing to study and succeed and thus an overall reputation of community being inferior. Once the group is deemed inferior, a logical company would prefer the stereotypically better group, and thus perpetuate the inferiority.
Similarly, devolution of areas to isolated ghettos can be explained by a logical behavior. A perfectly integrated community may be functioning well. Each resident likes to have a certain number of similar people nearby, and that balance is properly met. However, if one resident moves out and is replaced by a "different" person, that could upset the balance. Now one person feels they are too different, and move out, this starts the chain reaction which results in the community dominated by a single group.
There are a number of additional examples in other areas of logical explanations for something that seems illogical on the surface. Groups can do strange things when they are composed of individuals doing "logical" things.